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Any conscious being, if the good come to him, will know the
good and affirm his possession of it.
But what if one be deceived?
In that case there must be some resemblance to account for the
error: the good will be the original which the delusion
counterfeited and whenever the true presents itself we turn from
the spurious.
All the striving, all the pain, show that to everything something
is a good: the lifeless finds its share in something outside
itself; where there is life the longing for good sets up pursuit;
the very dead are cared for and mourned for by the living; the
living plan for their own good. The witness of attainment is
betterment, cleaving to state, satisfaction, settlement,
suspension of pursuit. Here pleasure shows itself inadequate; its
choice does not hold; repeated, it is no longer the same; it
demands endless novelty. The good, worthy of the name, can be no
such tasting of the casual; anyone that takes this kind of thing
for the good goes empty, carrying away nothing but an emotion
which the good might have produced. No one could be content to
take his pleasure thus in an emotion over a thing not possessed
any more than over a child not there; I cannot think that those
setting their good in bodily satisfactions find table-pleasure
without the meal, or love-pleasure without intercourse with their
chosen, or any pleasure where nothing is done.
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